


As cousins should

by knitmeapony



Category: New World Magischola (Live-Action Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 12:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11313414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knitmeapony/pseuds/knitmeapony
Summary: There is a slagerod in Savia’s purse, and god but she knows it.What happened that afternoon that her mother came to call.





	As cousins should

There is a slagerod in Savia’s purse, and god but she knows it.

It consumes her thoughts, which is impressive considering how terrified she is.  Before Ari had given it to her her mind had been filled with the terrified whispers of the little girl that she had once been.

_Mother’s coming to take you away._

_Mother will take your words away again if you’re not quiet._

_Mother will take your hands away again if you’re not still._

_Mother will take your feet away again if you’re not well-behaved._

_Mother will take your laughter away if you don’t smile._

_You’ll have to stay home today, Savia.  We can’t be seen in public that way, can we?  No, of course we can’t._

The endless echoing susurration was what led her to reach out to her cousin.  Savia did not like asking for help -- she might be incapable of it, if she were being honest -- but she could ask to borrow the little bit of blood and bone and wood that she could feel in her cousin’s backpack, couldn’t she?

Of course she could, and she did.  They meet at the pit, and they smile, and they say kind things to each other as cousins should.  They stand shoulder to shoulder, and work in concert to slide a secret from one bag to the next, neither one ready to touch it directly.  

Ari warns her about the bindings on the holster.  They mutter a few more pleasantries and as casually as they had met, they separate.  The burden had passed from one to the other, and Savia’s mind was consumed.

_I should work on my ritual language report.  I have a slagerod. If I don’t get the second honors paperwork started, I’ll never get it done.  I have a slagerod.  I need to make a mask for midnight.  Should I use the slagerod?_

She goes to her room, changes her shoes, ties back her hair.  Mother told her to put up her hair -- Savia knows what that means.  It means her mother intends to adjust her again.  It means that she could be a different person by dinner time.  It means she could be smiling and empty and, in a strange way, happy.

_Mother will notice if I’m wearing this headband.  Best to use a ribbon.  I have a slagerod._ _I should take off the eye makeup; she doesn’t approve of mascara.  I have a slagerod.  Perhaps I should just practice with it?  Get my fingers around the handle, feel what it feels like, listen to it for just a moment..._

She goes to the pit to sit and wait.  Her bag is neatly zipped up, with just the smallest corner of the handle of her own wand peeking out.  She touches the brass cap, remembering her grandfather.  

_I wonder if he really died of natural causes?  I wonder if he was really sick?  He was barely a hundred, and we are wizards after all._ _And I have a slagerod_.   _I wonder if it could give me answers?_

Mother arrives for lunch, and Savia smiles in that vacant way that she knows is approved by the family as she says polite things to the one woman in the world that she would kill, if she could.  She tries to act empty as they make their way out the front door.  She absorbs the abuse, the sideways comments, seeking the horizon for anyone who could help her.

_Your friends promised they’d be here, and they’re not.  No one is here for you, Savia, and Mother is going to take it all away..._

_.... but I have a slagerod._

They cross into the woods and from time to time they stop.  Professors give her worried looks when she introduces them, and the counselor stops her, asks her for permission to restore her mind if it becomes necessary.  There’s a scream in her mind at that -- a nine-year-old girl begging _no no no no please mother no_  -- and another voice, stronger, half-hers, half alien.

_I have a slagerod.  I have power and anonymity.  There will be no need to restore my mind, because I have everything I need.  I just need everyone to leave -- everyone has to leave because they can’t see me doing this._

She squares her shoulders and tells the counselor all is well, that it’s a family affair.  They nod.  Her mother smiles.  Savia wants to throw up, but instead she falls into step with her mother again.

They turn a corner, and walk up a path, and there’s no one around and finally, _finally_ , everything comes tumbling out.  She hisses and spits like a cornered cat, tells her mother _no_  for the first time... but the words are weak. Why is she weak?  Why is she so fucking lost? 

Her mother grabs her chin, jerks her face forward, forces their eyes to meet.  Savia feels her resolve crumbling, her anger curling into a dark place in her stomach, banked like coals, no longer a fire.

She watches, helpless, as her mother lifts her wand, puts it to her temple. "Modifica memoria,” she hears, as she has a thousand times before, and her knees almost buckle, and there are tears in her eyes as she can feel her mind slipping.  

_Goodbye again_.   _I told you mother would take your words if you weren’t kind to her.  I told you mother would take your hands, and your feet, your eyes and your throat.  Nothing but ears, listen to her, it’s easier if you just sink..._

Savia’s twitches, and she reaches for her wand, frantically.  It’s no more than a reflex, a panic response that never gets her anywhere -- but today it connects not with polished walnut and brass, but with bone and blood and wood.

... _I have a slagerod_.

She feels it surging through her.  She can hear the alien voice even louder now, a voice of rage igniting those banked coals from nothing to a conflagration too fast too fast too fast.  She is burned from the inside out, and her mother’s face goes white, and she hears a voice that is hers -- not hers, but _hers_ \-- saying something terrible aloud.  

The voice in her head goes on and on and on.

_It would be so easy.  So easy to be safe.  Safety comes through power, and power is what I have.  Just one little word, just one little spell, and she’s nothing but meat and maggots.  She’ll never hurt you again, she’ll never be able to hurt your child, she’ll never turn on your sister -- you have a sister -- you should protect her too, shouldn’t you?_

It’s one word.   _It’s only one word._ A word and a push and no one could ever prove a thing.   _I have a slagerod, and no one would ever have to know_. And it was a net good, wasn’t it?  In the end, wasn’t she doing the right thing for the right reasons?

Except there were other voices in her head, now.  

Wittenburg, telling her _you’re a credit to your house, Savia.  Thank you_.

Kane, reminding her _what you are and what you do are two different things, don’t ever confuse them_.

Armstrong, saying _we can’t ever forget that with this great power comes great responsibility -- look it up_.

Jay, promising to _never tell anyone you’re nice, really_.

Quorinth, sharing secrets after Yule.   _I don’t ever want to be someone that people regret meeting_.

And Jinx, and Contreras, and Lee, and Styles, and Aurora, and Minerva, and Andrew and even, god help her, Dorian Oxendine.   _Why am I doing this?  Because_ I _choose.  Nothing -- no one -- chooses our destiny for us._

The wind shifts, and picks up.  Rain’s coming soon, and it’d only take one word for Savia to kill her mother; only one storm to obliterate the evidence.

And she can’t.  But she can’t quite stop, either.

“As you can see by this wand in my hand, the family looks out for me -- not for you. Your home can be some other place. Your name can be some other name.  Or you can continue to be a Burke, and live at the bottom of the pond behind you.”

Finally -- _finally_  -- after an eternity of waiting, her mother’s eyes flick down.  She takes a step backwards.  She swallows her words.  She puts her wand away.

There’s a chink in her armor, and Savia’s driven the tip of the slagerod right through it.  Not by spells or by violence, just with square shoulders and words and will.

She hardly hears the rest of the conversation -- neither of them really do -- but the final negotiation is short and snipped and painful.  Mary Burke -- not Mary Burke, she’s no longer a Burke, she’s _nothing_...

... _she’s nothing, it only takes one word to kill her, don’t let this opportunity pass you by, what if she’s lying, what if she’s still dangerous, what if what if what if..._

_..._ Mary without a family turns on her heel and slowly, grudgingly walks away.

Savia’s hands are shaking so hard she nearly drops the slagerod, but she manages to wrap it up in the holster, tuck it away in her bag again.  She puts down her head and she walks, fast and hard, to find something to eat.  There’s sliced roast beef and she puts four slices on her plate and she eats them alone, using her hands, eyes on the clock.  

She has a class at two o’clock, after all.  An _ethics_  class.  She laughs -- still alone, aware of how very mad she must look -- and wipes the sauce on a napkin.

_It looks like blood.  You could have had blood_.   _You could have had_ her _blood.  It’s not too late -- there are other here who have harmed you.  Who know too much_.

She closes her eyes and zips her bag closed and squares her shoulders again.

_No time for murder.  Quiet, now.  I have to get to class_.

And miracle of miracles, the rod goes silent.


End file.
